Acronis cannot recover backups from my NAS (Drobo 5N2)
My Acronis True Image 2020 successfully does daily backups to my NAS (Drobo 5N2). However I cannot get Acronis to recover any of my backups. I have tried to type in the IP address of my NAS but no joy. Recently I transferred a true image backup file from my Drobo to an external drive. I was then able to boot my PC with a flash drive and restore the true image of my C: drive using the file that I transferred to the external drive. It successfully restored my C: drive with all of my programs and data.
Has anyone had any trouble recovering backup file from a NAS?
Hi Steve,
I use a flash drive to boot my windows 10 PC. Then using Acronis true image 2020 I select recover my disks. Next I click on browse and try to select NAS but nothing happens. What I don't understand is that Acronis communicates with my NAS when doing the automatic daily backups but can't see the NAS during recovery. My PC and my NAS are both connected to my internet with an ethernet cable.
Harley, when you are booting from the Acronis rescue media flash drive, then you may need to try different methods to ensure that you can 'find or see' your NAS on the network.
The first step needs to be to ensure that you have a valid network configuration and IP address for which you will need to use a command prompt window to issue a command such as ipconfig /all to see that your network adapter has been given a valid address.
Next, try pinging your NAS IP address to ensure this is found on the same network segment as your PC address.
Assuming that the above actions are successful, next try to start a recovery from the NAS to test that ATI can find it too using the same IP address.
If you can get this far, then you should also be able to perform a recovery from the NAS using the same approach.
You will obviously need to supply any credentials required by the NAS during the above process.
Harley,
Access to your NAS using the Recovery Media is quite different than doing so while using the Windows installed True Image application. Networking is available in the Recovery Media however support is not as robust Windows.
When you setup your NAS for backup to the NAS did you have to supply the IP address of the Drobo or did you do so using the hostname of the device? (ie. \\drobo****\user\)
Whatever you used you should use the same in the Browse for backup screen in the Recovery Media. After you click on the Browse button you should be presented with a Browse for Location screen. In the left pane of the screen you will see Network. Click to select Network then be patient and after a brief delay you should see Entire Network appear below Network in the left pane. Click on Entire Network to select it and again be patient.
True Image will scan your network for backup files and will begin to display those upon discovery. It may take several minutes for the app to discover all files depending on how many there are.
If no files appear after a couple of minutes position your mouse cursor in the Path field toward the bottom of the screen and click inside it. Once your cursor is there begin typing the path to your NAS \\IPAddess or Hostname\*****\. This action should force the app to discover the path. If your network share requires credentials a prompt will appear for them.
Recently I transferred a true image backup file from my Drobo to an external drive. I was then able to boot my PC with a flash drive and restore the true image of my C: drive using the file that I transferred to the external drive. It successfully restored my C: drive with all of my programs and data. What I am trying to do now is to document the methodology of restoring the backup file directly from my NAS thus eliminating the intermediate step of using an external drive. I tried to follow all of your suggestions of using the IP address of the NAS or the hostname and I can't get it to work. Since my PC is working I played around with seeing if I could access the NAS by entering either the IP address or host name in the Chrome browser. As you can see in the attached pdf file only one attempt gave me any results. However none of these work when I boot the PC with a thumb drive and use the recovery option of Acronis True Image 2020. I have tried entering several combinations of IP addresses, host names etc. in the File Name window and nothing works.
Harley, thanks for your document and screen images.
Your approach has a basic flaw in that you are providing an invalid path to your files.
From your document:
Above is your correct, working path.
Next above are your incorrect paths!
Correct should be
\\192.168.10.200\Harleys_PC_C_Drive\
or
\\drobo5n2\Harleys_PC_C_Drive\
without adding in any extra names.
The share name should not be case-sensitive either unless this is required by the OS used by the NAS.
Harley,
Have you tried gaining access to your NAS using File Explorer? In Explorer type \\drobo5n2\Harleys_PC_C_Drive\ You should see files/folders in your share which is harleys_pc_c_drive. If credentials are needed to access the share then Windows will prompt for them. Doing this is very similar to that of the Thumb drive app.
Yes, I can access the NAS in Explorer when my PC is booted up normally. I am trying to connect to the NAS when I boot up with a flash drive. My options at this point are 1) Acronis Universal Restore, 2) Acronis True Image, 3) Acronis System Report, and c) Continue Booting. Unless I am missing something the Explorer File Manager is not available here. I am convinced that the name is not the problem it is a network/connection problem. When I boot up with the flash drive and select Acronis True Image one of the items on top is a Network menu. In this menu there are 2 options, ethernet cable and wireless. I have been playing around with the ethernet option by inputting the IP address and other data. So far it says not connected. Next I will try the wireless option. I am determined to figure this out!
Harley, if you have created the rescue media including AUR then you are most likely using the older Linux based media which has limited support for newer drives and network components.
I would recommend trying the Acronis Rescue Media Builder to create the Simple version of the media on your USB drive, where at a minimum you will have a WinPE Command Prompt window that you can use to test your network connection by using commands such as:
ipconfig /all
ping 192.168.10.200
Concur with Steve here. The Linux version is likely your issue. That version probably lacks driver support for your network controllers thus you have no connection. All instructions I have given so far have been assuming the use of WinPE/RE however, with driver support the same instructions will work in the Linux versions too/
Steve, I took your advice and created a flash drive using the Acronis Rescue Media Builder. When I pinged the IP address of my NAS it couldn't find it. This procedure worked on my wife's PC and I am convinced that there is something missing on my flash drive. I tried creating a bootable flash drive using the MVP_ATIPEBuilder but it came up with some errors. I have attached the log file that was generated. Can you tell what I did wrong?
Harley, from looking at the MVP log the only errors look to relate to injecting device drivers from your system, otherwise the build was successful.
Normally, I do not take the option to add drivers from the local system as they are not normally needed.
Steve, after 3.5 weeks I found out how to get ATI 2020 to recover a file from my NAS (Drobo5n2). By going to the device manager I found the name of the driver for the network card. Then using the ATI Rescue Media Builder I selected Advanced, WinPE Based, Windows 10, and then selected the driver folder for the network card. ATI couldn't communicate with my NAS because it was missing the driver. After booting with the flash drive I successfully pinged the IP on my NAS. I was then able to use ATI to recover any disk or files. As my boss used to say "Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill". Recently I had 81 candles on my cake.
Harley, sounds like a result to me so well done for finding the right driver for your network card and making this work.
p.s. just 10 more candles than me...!
Harley,
Great news and good to hear! I was meaning to chime in today and suggest that your problem was a missing network adapter driver but you got that figured out so perfect! Sorry it took so long though.
Steve and Enchantech,
Thank you for your prompt support that enabled me to use ATI to access my NAS. I have attached a PDF that shows the steps that I used to create a Windows based bootable flash drive that lets ATI recover disks or files from a Drobo5n2 NAS. Feel free to modify the file, move it to another location, or delete the file.
Harley Collins LV2FLY.HC@gmail.com
Harley,
Nice job! Thanks for sharing. I am confident it will help other users.
Thank you, Harley! I've also published your tutorial in the Best practices forum
I was just testing my Rescue Media today, and discovered this issue myself: ATI 2019 can't find the NAS that has all of my backups. My network settings were all correct, but my NAS was nowhere to be found with the ATI recovery UI.
So I just exited the recovery UI, back to the command prompt, and entered
net use B: \\NAS\BACKUPS
and after providing the username and password, all was good. I then restarted the ATI recovery UI (trueimage_starter.exe) and after that, B: was visible under "This PC", along with all of my tibs.
This works, and maybe it's even another helpful workaround. However...I could *swear* that ATI recovery from rescue media used to find my NAS, and my backups, with no additional fiddling around.